Pak rugby team reaches Kazakhstan

LAHORE, May 14 (APP):Pakistan rugby team has reached Kazakhstan to in the four-nation Div III Asian Rugby Championship being played in Almaty from Tuesday.
The team comprises 26 players and 4 officials, said a spokesman of Pakistan Rugby Union while talking to APP here on Monday. Mongolia, Kirghizstan and host Kazakhstan are the other participating teams of the event.
Kashif kahwaja leads the team whose other members are Nasir Mehmood, Shahid Mehmood, Muhammad Haroon, Musadiq Altaf, Irfan Shahzad, Sharfat Ali, Muhmmad Waqas, Israr Ahmed, Anjum Shahzad, Zahid Iqbal, Daud Gill, Faisal Aslam, Muhammad Waqas, Malik Arif Hussain, Muhammad Talha, Hamad Safdar, Ahmer Ali, Syed Muhammad Moiz Ali, Syed Muhammad Daud Ali, Adnan Saeed, Saad Arif, Muhammad Ali Khan, Muhammad Shoaib Akbar, Ahmed Wasim Akram and Shahbaz Khan.
The team officials are, Head Coach Shakeel Ahmed Malik, Manager, Muhammad Yahya Bhatti, Analyst ,Salman Muzzafar Shaikh, and Physiotherapist, Mohsin Aziz.
According to head coach the team is balanced and it has the potential to attain desired results. ” A lot of hard work and effort were carried out during the preparation of the team at a training camp at home”, he said adding ” We have specialized players for many positions and they performed well during the training as well as practice matches”.
He said the first semi final of the event will be played between Pakistan and Kirghizstan on May 16 and Magnolia will take on Kazakhstan in the other semi final on the same day.
The final will be played on May 19 before the classification match for the third and fourth place.
The team’s coach said he anticipates tough fight from the opponents in the event and expressed the optimism that his team will live up to the expectations.
He said at the moment Pakistan in Div III and it will play its first test match after three years.
“It will be a historic moment in our sports history as we will be playing our first rugby test and it is the result of our years long efforts that he will be playing rugby test match which will give new identification to rugby in Pakistan “,he added.
He praised the efforts of PRU for promoting rugby all over the country with the help of an ambitious activity plan which has put the game at the road of progress.
“Even the World and Asian rugby bodies have acknowledged our efforts for the cause of game by creating ideal opportunity for youth to take up rugby as a sport “,he said.
Meanwhile President ,PRU, Fawzi Khawja has expressed his gratitude to Federal Minister for IPC ,Riaz Pirzada and Director General, Pakistan Sports board Amir Ahmed Ali for their generous support to Pakistan Rugby team during their preparation for the event.